Sunday, 23 January 2011

Today was another day when I, in my own mind, did something to improve democracy in this country. In my own mind. Let me have that.

I believe in an idea. I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with a country when it pays a foreign body to make its laws for it. When it has outsourced democracy; when it takes away the 'demos' in democracy and leaves only 'cratos' - power. I believe this is not only bad for the country, the nation, but potentially terminal. But that is just me. A nation cannot survive without its people, for then it is not a nation, it is a mere assembly, an assembly with no common interest or goal. Which seeks not to promote its values but merely lives for the sake of itself. Without dreams or aspirations, just the same old same old. I believe this is wrong.

Am I wrong? Well that is not for me to decide. For all I know outsourcing democracy might be an excellent idea, but that is not important. What is important is that it feels wrong. A small part of you dies every time you see that it has acquired yet more power. Like the Lernaen Hydra it just grows every time you try to cut it down. It prospers from disaster, it feeds on misery; misery for which it is largely to blame. We are becoming disenfranchised.

“Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” this is how we are told to live our lives with regard to it. We are not to bang on about it, not question it, not disagree with it - just accept it. If we question it we are seen as eccentrics, if we point out the obvious contradictions we are told 'but'. It rules by commandments like Moses, no justification but pointing to a higher source of absolution, as adequate explanation for its intrusions. But this is not the Bible. These are not stories written in metaphors and symbolism, this is happening now but we are refused our voice to question it, to rationalise it down to the fallacy it is. People are being denied their right to speak. History tells us that such a state of affairs has always ended in violence, as will this. Yet we are still called eccentrics.

I handed out another hundred leaflets today in my patch of London. It felt good. Although it wont make a shred of difference, I can at least point back to these days in the future when our children will ask 'why didn't you do anything?'. I can proudly look back and say 'we did, but no one else.' This is and never will be an exercise in satisfying one's ego, to excel to some spurious echelon of self-righteousness. It is not meant to invoke hatred of malice, it is meant to plant an idea. An idea we once had but have now lost. Beneath all this rhetoric there is an idea and ideas are bulletproof. I believe in this idea but my great task is to persuade other's to believe it as well. If I can convince just one person, just a single lonely soul, that my idea is better than what he previously believed then it will all be worth it.

This is not a religion, there are no grand books filled with moral codes of how and why one should live their lives. It is but an idea. It is a very simple idea. I have already stated the idea, you already know what it is; it is in between the lines of this post. It is in you right now or at least it should be. You should have reacted to what was said above in two words which are anathema to each other, outsourcing democracy. Now you know what the idea is that we have lost.

I have not even mentioned it by name, yet you all know what I am talking about. That is a testament to how little control we have over our own lives today. You might be able to change the small things in your life but, in the grand scheme of democracy you are nothing. Because you are nothing, we are nothing and that is how democracy died.

Where Power Went

In the Palace of Westminster, exercised on behalf of elected representatives of the people. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

1971 FCO 30/104

"The transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes… and effective Community regional economic and social policies will be essential… there would be a major responsibility on HM Government and on all political parties not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular policies to the remote and unmanageable workings of the Community."